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It is one of the least discussed NHL playoff series despite being one of the most intriguing.

You aren’t going to get experts frothing at the idea of watching the St. Louis Blues and Los Angeles Kings.

The Blues, although well coached, are hardly the most exciting team in the league and the Kings suffer from that West Coast syndrome where they play a lot of their hockey under the radar.

The Kings are the defending Stanley Cup champs and in many cases they are getting the same kind of respect they got at the beginning of last season’s playoffs ... not much.

To say the Kings shocked the hockey world last year is an understatement. The voltage was turned up not only because they won but how they did it. The longer the playoffs went, the easier it seemed to get for the Kings against their opponents.

The Blues were part of that detritus left behind by the Kings.

St. Louis was expected to be a tough out last year, but L.A. swept them aside in the second round.

That alone makes this series interesting.

They say familiarity breeds contempt. These two teams are indeed familiar and similar, and this matchup smacks of a seven game series.

The Blues are motivated. Despite losing the season series 3-0 they now have a chance to knock off the defending champs.

As for the Kings, let’s just say there’s talk of them being a one-hit wonder.

They haven’t played like the team that ran the table last year, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do it again. The roster from last season remained virtually intact with all the big pieces, including Mike Richards, Drew Doughty, Jonathan Quick, Jeff Carter, Anzi Kopitar, Dustin Brown.

That’s impressive.

The Blues appear to be an improved team from last season. They’ve added Jordan Leopold and Jay Bouwmeester to the defence corps. Seeing how Bouwmeester plays in his first playoff games after 10 seasons of NHL service is just one more storyline that ratchets up the interest in this series.

But how good will the Blues’ goaltending be? It sounds like a crazy question considering we’re talking about Brian Elliott and Jaroslav Halak. Both are solid in net and Elliott was remarkable last season.

But injuries and inconsistency has plagued the goaltending tandem this year. Coach Ken Hitchcock has inserted youngster Jake Allen at times.

Elliott has been showing flashes of his old self recently and Hitchcock said Elliott’s the one the Blues are going to sink or swim with.

It will be a grinding series. The teams match up physically. Both are big, strong and play the game with an emphasis on winning puck battles.

But how will the two teams match up mentally?

The Kings will have a big advantage. They proved they could beat the Blues. That makes it easier to do again.

“I think last year was an eye-opener . . . a real eye-opener,” Hitchcock said. “We were at one level and then there was another level. I think we showed that we could compete with teams but there is a difference between competing and winning.”

The only good thing about losing is that it toughens you up.

The Blues are going into these playoffs hoping that last year’s “eye-opening” experience toughened them up emotionally and prepared them for the playoffs this year.

The fact they drew the team that taught them such a stern lesson last year can be either a blessing and or a curse.

Everyone will get a much better handle on which one it will be after the first couple of games in the city with the arch.

Center John Tavares scored just 15 seconds into overtime Sunday afternoon as New York Islanders edged the Washington Capitals 2-1 in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals at a delirious Nassau Coliseum.